My
sermon is adapted from a sermon originally preached by Asahel Nettleton, with Matthew
13.54-58 as the text:

54And when
he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch
that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom,
and these mighty works?

55Is not
this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren,
James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?

56And his
sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these
things?

57And they
were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without
honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.

58And he did
not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

Those
living in the village the Lord Jesus Christ grew up in, a place called
Nazareth, are here said by Matthew’s gospel to have been astonished by Him.
However, though they were astonished by Him, they did not allow themselves to
be convinced by Him. Instead, just as you who are lost do, they threw up mental
roadblocks and distracted themselves by saying, “Is not this the carpenter’s
son? Is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and
Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath
this man all these things?”

You
see, they could not object to what the Savior said. Neither could they question
the few miracles He had worked there. But being strongly prejudiced against
Him, as you are strongly prejudiced against Him (and they chose to be so
prejudiced just as you have chosen to be so prejudiced), they clung fiercely to
the only means they had of holding on to their prejudices, just as you cling
fiercely to the only means you have of holding on to your prejudices.

This
holding on to prejudices against the Lord Jesus Christ was such a sin that the
Savior thought it very proper to punish it. He therefore ceased to preach to
them, and withdrew His miracle working demonstrations from them. He also
withdrew the gracious influences of His Holy Spirit from them. I fear that He
has done the same with some of you in our church.

Let Me Make A Bold
ASSERTION

We
have here an example of God’s dealings with a certain kind of sinner. God often
passes by certain classes of wicked sinners and chooses not to awaken them and
convert them. Why does He do this? He does this as the punishment for some kind
of special provocation. This is undeniably shown in our text.

If
those people had not indulged in and fastened onto such malignant prejudices,
Christ would have gone on with His ministry and His miracles there, just as He
had in other locations. However, when He saw their determination not to be
convinced, He determined not to convince them, and stopped His mighty works. I
fear that this will be the case with some of our young people.

We
have evidence of the Savior doing this same thing elsewhere. Matthew 11.20-21: “Then
began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done,
because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida!
for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and
Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” And notice
what Jesus says in Luke 19.42: “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in
this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from
thine eyes.”

Their
state is now hopeless. They are never to be converted. Instead, they are doomed
to destruction. Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Jerusalem. But why were they given up?
It was for their incorrigible prejudice against Jesus Christ. It was for
resisting the light of truth and neglecting salvation. Two of these cities
stood for many more years. Of course, Jerusalem remains. But only a few in
those cities were converted. The great body of its inhabitants were never
converted to Christ.

“Oh,
but many in Jerusalem were converted on the day of Pentecost,” you might
observe. “Yes,” I respond, “but the vast majority of those converted were
visiting for the feast day, and were not among those who had so stubbornly
rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This
type of thing is only a repetition of a similar sentence executed once before
upon that nation, and recorded in Psalm 81.8-16:

10I am
the LORD thy God, which brought thee out
of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.

11But my
people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.

12So I gave
them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own
counsels.

13Oh that my
people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!

14I should
soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.

15The haters
of the LORD should have submitted
themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever.

16He should
have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock
should I have satisfied thee.

There
is one sin a person can commit which shall never be forgiven, the unpardonable
sin. It is the deliberate and malicious speaking evil of the workings of the
Holy Spirit by someone who knows full well they are the Spirit’s doings. That
sin is unpardonable, not because the atonement is insufficient, but because the
crime is of such a nature that God is determined never to grant to such a
criminal the soul-cleansing influence, which he so maliciously reviles.

Therefore,
though there is but this one sin that prevents the application of redemption in
every single instance, there are some sins in which not every
application of redemption is prevented, but in which most are.

To
put it another way. Not one single person guilty of blaspheming the Holy Spirit
will ever be saved. Not even one. However, there are other sins that, while not
everyone who commits them will be irretrievably lost, the vast majority who
commit them will be irretrievably lost. This is confirmed by the providence of
God. There are people who fall into various categories, depending on the kinds
of sins they commit, from which categories only a very, very few are granted
salvation and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. This is true concerning those who
put off the care of their soul until they become old. Very few old people ever are
saved. There are also a variety of vicious types of sins, in which very few of
those who commit them are ever reclaimed. As well, the Word of God warns every
young person to flee youthful lusts. Associated with youthful lusts, the
prostitute is engaged in the kind of wickedness that puts her in such a state
that is almost hopeless of salvation. Of her house, it is said the dead are
there. None that go there return. Her guests are in the depths of Hell. There
is an occasional instance of a whoremonger being converted, but only one in a
thousand. Further, there are those who accept erroneous doctrines of a
particular type. Where the deity of Christ is denied, the total depravity of man
is denied, the necessity of the new birth is denied, and justification by faith
is denied, there the Holy Spirit seldom works to save the soul. They cry peace
until sudden destruction cometh upon them. They sleep on until death opens
their eyes to the truth, and to their ruin beyond the grave. How much danger,
then, are you in who hear these doctrines preached without responding? Though
you may not openly deny the truths that I have mentioned, do you not in fact
show that you do not believe them to be true by the way you respond when they
are preached? Do you not, by your attitude and by your actions, deny that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God, that conversion is necessary, that God demands
repentance, and that a Substitute is needed by a sinner to escape the wrath to
come?

People
who are awakened feel and confess. Those who have been reconciled to God
through faith in Christ rejoice and give credit to the Savior for their
deliverance. So, you, by turning away in disgust from the gospel after you
having neglected and perverted the testimony of the Bible, are guilty of
repeating the crimes of those who lived in Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin. In
addition, if you do not repent you will suffer the same destruction. It appears
from the Bible that kings and philosophers, the wise, the rich and the great
who are saved are comparatively few in number. The reason? The reason assigned
by Christ is “even so Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight,” Luke 10.21. God
does what He chooses. Moreover, among those He chooses not to save, relatively
speaking, are people like you who are smug in your sins and who think yourself
to be so wise.

This
does not imply that in leaving you God will act in an arbitrary fashion, or
that your destiny is not the result of your own crimes. Quite the contrary. Examine
every category of sin from which few sinners are saved. Each kind of sin is
distinguished by some peculiar provocation, which God, though sovereign,
chooses to mark and respond to by generally passing by and giving over you who
aggravate Him so. For it is not only by His Law and His gospel, by principles
and penalties, that He encourages obedience and admonishes the wicked. He also
governs this world of His in such a manner as to corroborate His Word, to show
it to be true and reliable. The Holy Spirit works in such a way that the
chances of someone who is brought up in a Christian home and environment is far
greater than those who do not have such opportunities. However, what do you
think His response is to that person who has such wonderful opportunities, but
then foolishly squanders them?

God
exercises sovereign grace in such a way that those who neglect the means of
grace, that man who will not regularly attend church, and give his tithes, and
lead his family in devotions, simply does not have the same likelihood of
experiencing the grace of God as the man who does regarding these things. In
like manner, the man given over to fornication and booze and drugs is less
likely to be saved than is the man who is morally clean and temperate. As well,
the errorist does not have the same likelihood of being saved as does he who
believes the truth. Neither does the infidel or the scoffer. What, then, of
that one who has access to all the means of grace, who enjoys every advantage,
but who spurns God’s offer, who rejects God’s Son, who scorns God’s grace? Oh,
for him it will be especially bad, don’t you think?

Now Let Me Respond
To Your OBJECTION

My,
how people object to what Scripture asserts. Perhaps one of these objections is
yours.

Objection #1: “You
are teaching salvation by good works.” No. There is no conflict between the
passage that says we are “saved by grace through faith,” which is in the Bible,
and the passage that says the lost are judged “according to their works,” which
is also in the Bible. Additionally, Jesus does tell lost people that they are
to do certain things in preparation to receive the gospel without those things
in any way meriting salvation. We see it in Luke 13.24: “Strive to enter in at
the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not
be able.” Moreover, we see the Ethiopian eunuch actually engaged in this
striving to enter in at the strait gate in Acts 8.27-38. First, that fellow
learned the language the Word of God was written in, which almost certainly was
not his native language. Second, he traveled at great expense of time and money
to Jerusalem to worship God. Third, he was actually studying God’s Word so he
might know how to worship God. Obviously, the eunuch eventually did come to
know Christ. However, did his strivings create merit before God that caused him
to deserve the salvation, which he found in Jesus Christ? Not at all. So,
rather than suggesting that doing certain things creates merit in the sight of
God, our text for today clearly shows that other things create greater demerit
in the sight of God, such demerit that God chooses, on the basis of such
particularly heinous sins, to pass those sinners by who commit them and not
convert them to Christ. Therefore, you actually diminish the likelihood that
you will ever be saved by the things that some of you do. Keep doing those
things and the likelihood that you will ever be saved approaches a statistical
probability of zero.

Objection #2: “The
sovereignty of God takes the entire matter out of my hands.” Occasionally
someone will tell me something like, “I can’t do anything to save myself, so
it’s useless to try to do right. I might just as well just stay home and not
even try to please God.” However, you who think this way overlook an important
fact. Though you cannot merit salvation, you most certainly can merit
destruction. Though none of your doings commends you to God’s favor, it is an
easy thing to kindle His wrath. Therefore, the reason why God passes you by, if
He passes you by, may very well be this type of perversion of His Word. If you
can never save yourself, and you cannot (we all agree on that), it does not
follow that you may not so neglect and conduct yourself so as to destroy
yourself. So, quit trying to outthink God and relieve yourself of the
responsibility to look after your own soul’s welfare.

Oh,
what a wonderful opportunity the people living in Nazareth had to hear the Lord
Jesus Christ preach to them, to see the Lord Jesus Christ work mighty miracles,
to be persuaded, convinced, and finally converted to saving faith in Him. As
well, what great opportunities those who lived in Chorazin and Bethsaida and
Capernaum had, as well as the inhabitants of Jerusalem. However, their
opportunities were for nothing, because of their stubborn prejudice and refusal
to consider the claims of Jesus Christ.

To
put it another way, they committed a particularly galling sin in the sight of
God that caused Him to pass them by, to deny them further opportunity to see,
hear, and behold the wonders of God’s only begotten Son.

What
particularly galling sin do you commit that greatly wounds the heart of God,
that greatly offends the sensibility of God, that particularly infuriates the
holiness of God? Do you stubbornly refuse to avail yourself of the means of
grace by keeping your Bible closed, by missing church, by stealing God’s tithe,
by distracting yourself and others during the preaching of God’s Word?

I
am convinced that a number of you young people are so galling to God that it is
unlikely, based upon your present course, based upon your present attitude,
based upon your present choice of friends, based upon your present commitment
to remaining lost, that you will ever get saved.

You
see, the conversion of a sinner is a great miracle of God, made possible by the
shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross long ago. However, the
work of conversion can be stopped as a punishment to some special provocation.

Don’t
be so foolish as to provoke God. Avail yourself of the means God uses to impart
to sinners His grace. Strive to enter in at the strait gate. Seek the Lord
while He may be found. Abandon the young fools you consider your friends, who
are only luring and enticing you to join them in Hellfire. Humble yourself,
because resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Come to Christ.

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